More Facts Uncovered in Chavez - Al Qaeda Collaboration

By Luis Garcia, in Miami

Whistle-blower Juan Diaz Castillo, pilot of the Venezuelan Airforce One, revealed more details of how president Hugo Chavez supported Al Qaeda in the aftermath of 9/11. In statements to the press in Miami Saturday, the defector shed new light on the terrorist support network recently uncovered in the highest level of the Venezuelan government.

Major Juan Diaz Castillo, Chavez's personal pilot, was assigned the job of planning the delivery of the $1 million collaboration to the terrorist group. Now an active member of the country's resistance movement, he is today revealing details of the transfer and of other subversive acts carried out in the name of Chavez's socalled "Bolivarian Revolution".

" - They are criminals and killers," he lambasts the inner circle of Chavez cohorts. And he is not afraid of naming names: "The job was given to me by Hugo Chavez. I coordinated with current Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, then Interior Minister Luis Alfonso Davila, and the current Vice President (then Defense Minister) Jose Vicente Rangel. When we determined the difficulty of sending three Hercules C-130 transport planes to Afghanistan, Diosdado Cabello decided to send cash instead. " - In the last week of September, 2001, one million U.S. dollars was transferred to Dr Walter Marquez, Venezuela's representative for the region. Of that amount, one hundred thousand was used for food and clothing for the Taliban government, and the remaining nine hundred thousand dollars went to the Taliban in cash, with the understanding that it was to support the Al Qaeda terrorists in their relocation efforts."

Cuban involvement: "Chavez is Castro's puppet"

Asked why Chavez would support Al Qaeda, the high-level military defector offered two explanations. " - First of all, Chavez had for a long time wanted a direct line of communication with Al Qaeda. He had asked Libya for that, but with no success. Then came 9/11 and Chavez was impressed," remembers the pilot of the presidential airplane. " - Second, Chavez looks up to Fidel Castro. The Cuban dictator has collaborated with terrorist groups for years. Chavez emulates Fidel Casto. It sounds bizarre, but Chavez is a bizarre man. He was already starting to go off the rails in 2001, and he wanted direct contacts to all the major terror groups in the world."

According to Diaz Castillo, Chavez depends on Fidel Castro's advice in governing Venezuela. The pilot revealed that during the last four years, roughly 4,000 Venezuelans have been receiving military and intelligence training in Cuba.

The Cuban communist dictator assists Venezuela's embattled crypto-communist in holding onto power, at whatever cost, because Cuba depends on Venezuela's oil billions to stay afloat. Earlier this year, Fidel Castro said that "for the Cuban revolution to survive, it is necessary for the Bolivarian revolution to survive," in reference to Chavez's Marxist experiment.

Diaz Castillo also documented illegal weapons smuggling from Cuba to Venezuela, a charge which General Nestor Gonzalez Gonzalez of Venezuela's army also leveled against the Chavez administration. The weapons arrive in huge quanties ''by boat and by air'', from Cuba, even using boats from the stateowned Ferrominera del Orinoco company. Via the Orinoco river, some of these weapons are then shipped directly to the Colombian terrorist organizations, FARC and ELN.

Chavez has a direct line of communications with Castro, and every time there are serious problems in Venezuela, the two get together in secret meetings in Margarita Island or the La Orchila presidential retreat, a sinister island fortress in the Caribbean which is off-limits to the public. They also meet in Cuba. " - Chavez constantly shuttles to Havana, undercover. Usually after midnight, and returning to Caracas at noon," revealed his former personal pilot. " - Chavez is Castro's puppet."

After an attempt was made on his life December 16 by Chavez's secret service, friends in the resistance movement smuggled major Diaz Castillo out of the country in the hull of a fishing boat. Now in safety abroad, he is not afraid to reveal what really goes on in the Chavez administration and how Chavez rewarded Al Qaeda with $1M in the weeks after 9/11.